Tag Archives: Holiday meals

Thanksgiving Greetings from an Ingrate, 2019

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JC Schildbach

 

I don’t know if I’d call it a run of bad luck, but our Thanksgiving Dinners out at fancy restaurants took a bit of a turn a few years ago, and never quite got back on track.

 

M, in particular, had a rough go of things.  Three years ago, we had to cancel our reservations at Ray’s Boathouse last-minute, when a bad reaction to some sort of hair-care product caused M’s scalp to start burning – not in a literal, Michael-Jackson Pepsi-commercial sort of way, but in a painful, hot sensation that was making her want to dig at her head with a fork.  This led to a last-minute trip to Safeway, where the kid, her then-boyfriend, and I grabbed up all manner of potentially scalp-soothing products, along with a turkey breast, a bag of potatoes, and a few pre-packaged sides.  Turkey breast in the pressure cooker, potatoes boiled for mashing, sides in the microwave, and Thanksgiving was saved, more-or-less.  We ate in our dining room, M’s hair slicked back with a heavy coating of some aloe-based goo, John Coltrane playing quietly in the background, as we talked and laughed aboutt all manner of things, including our abandoned holiday meal plans.

 

The next year brought a return to Preservation Kitchen, albeit with a different group of people than the previous time(s) we had been there for Thanksgiving.  Things started off well, beyond my uncomfortable collar/tie combo. Drinks ordered and received; dinner ordered and received; lively conversation and laughter. Then, as the main course was coming to a close, M fell silent. In the midst of a raucous exchange I was having with current and former co-workers, and with M sitting right next to me, I didn’t notice what those across from her began to notice – that she was absolutely not feeling well.  She had gone pale, and was staring down at the table, occasionally looking up wide-eyed, blinking and sweating. She let me know she needed to leave.  In my oft-clueless fashion, I told her we still had dessert on the way, and implored her to let me continue on with the party just a bit longer.  Before long, other guests were interrupting the conversation(s) I was having, to tell me to maybe just pay attention to her and help her out.  By the time it sunk in that this wasn’t just M feeling tired after a long meal, she was bolting from the table to the bathroom.  After a few minutes of vomiting, she returned to our group, and Thanksgiving dinner came to an end…roughly 90% successfully (and, no, the food had nothing to do with it.  M was in bed for the next few days with an illness that had been rolling around her school).

 

By Thanksgiving of last year, the owners of Preservation Kitchen had retired, and it was no more. And while this was disappointing, we had never gone to the same restaurant two years in a row.  Also, with a slightly larger party than most years, and a much greater geographic spread for the members of the party, we looked for something somewhat central to the majority.  I won’t spell out specifically where that was, as I like to give the benefit of the doubt to businesses who may not be performing up-to-snuff.  But we were seated in a very awkward location, practically a hallway, with another large party so close behind us that the wait staff had difficulty maneuvering between us (as did numerous other diners on their way to and from the restrooms).  In addition, the staff seemed to be the ‘B’ team–forced to work on the holiday in order to keep their jobs. Before we had even ordered drinks, a glass of water had been launched onto the table, the waiter perhaps not understanding the dynamics of weight distribution of items on trays, leading to more than one in our party enjoying a soggier-than-expected experience.  A trip by a few of us to the same restaurant on a ‘regular’ day several months later, though, suggested that the restaurant may not have an ‘A’ team.  And truly, truly, truly I try to look for the good in restaurant visits and not be overly critical, knowing the difficulty of the jobs involved.

 

So, this year, by the end of summer, when Thanksgiving reservations started opening up at restaurants that offer Thanksgiving meals, I began asking (to M first, of course) if our ‘regulars’ would be willing to turn up at our house in the event we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner.  While all who didn’t already have plans agreed they would be willing, more than one floated the condition that if we were going to host, the hosts should not be put in the position of cooking on top of hosting.  In the spirit of the low-hassle Thanksgiving, they encouraged the ordering of a Thanksgiving meal from a grocery store, rather than going to the hassle of shopping and preparing all the items.  While M, at first, enthusiastically floated notions of an extravagant meal we would cook and dish up with love and thanks (as we had done multiple times prior to starting our restaurant tradition) she quickly acquiesced when I presented her with the truth(s) that if we decided to make the food, not only would we (well, I) end up doing a boatload of shopping, but we (all of us) would end up cleaning house, while the cooking chores would fall to God-only-knows who, as each of us (M, the kid, and I) are all kitchen divas who don’t cook well with others. I then showed her offerings from several local (well national-local) stores, appealing to her “sense of fanciness” with a trip to the Whole Foods website, and their various meal options.

Thanks 2019

Oh, so fancy.  Catered, kind of, by Whole Foods.

Ultimately, the decision was made that Whole Foods would be cooking for us. We’re just reheating what they provide. Compared to what we, as a group, usually spend at a restaurant on Thanksgiving, it’s a very reasonable cost—even while ordering a meal for many more people than we’re expecting.  And I suppose if we aren’t happy with dinner, we can try another restaurant or grocery store next year–or maybe go back to full-on hosting.  At least this year, we’ll have nobody but ourselves to blame for the service—which, I’m sure, will be fantastic.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Thanksgiving Greetings from an Ingrate

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by JC Schildbach

With all apologies to the wonderful people among my family and friends who have prepared some amazing holiday meals over the years…

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that I’ve had to learn to love…or like a lot…or maybe just kind of like. As a kid, Thanksgiving didn’t have the obvious benefits of other holidays—like Halloween (monsters and candy), Christmas (presents and flashing lights), New Years Eve/Day (getting to stay up late and listen to the top-whatever countdown of the year’s/decade’s/history of rock’s top hits), July 4th (explosions, fire, and kickass food prepared with fire). I could go on, but I don’t know if even adding fire could really make Thanksgiving all that interesting.

Way back when, the only really good thing about Thanksgiving was getting a four-day weekend, which was pretty weird, anyway. I mean, really, why put the holiday on a Thursday? If it was a celebration of Thor, that would be cool. Hey, maybe that’s the key to making Thanksgiving interesting—Thor. Well, probably not.  But so far the best thing anybody has come up with is to add in a bunch of football games, which, as far as plans for making things interesting goes, is shaky at best.

And, sure, I liked turkey-based art projects. And I liked watching the parade with the giant balloon cartoon characters, but then there was that whole thing of having to sit through multiple marching bands and other weirdness and commercials in between the giant, inflatable cartoon characters. How much patience did these people expect 8-year-olds to have? And let’s face it, not even Ethyl Merman loves a parade, no matter how enthusiastically she belts out that musical lie.

Overall, Thanksgiving just felt like an excuse for adults to make kids put on clothes they should never have to wear outside of a church, forcing them to be itchy and bored for hours on end, while waiting for a meal of foods nobody really wanted to eat anyway. I blame Thanksgiving for tilting me toward a mild obsession with mashed potatoes. Peppermint Patty hollering, “Where’s the mashed potatoes?” is something I relate to entirely too well.  My anxiety over the thought of attending a Thanksgiving dinner that has all the usual stuff, but no mashed potatoes…unreal.

As far as the rest of the Thanksgiving fare goes…Turkey—sure, that’s fine, I guess. Cranberries—I like them well enough now, but as a kid, I just couldn’t help but think they tasted all wrong. They were berries, but they weren’t really sweet. They just should have been different somehow. And speaking of sweet-and-should’ve-been-different, there are those damn sweet potatoes. Who wants to eat that? It’s brown sugar and something that’s kind of like a potato, but kind of like a carrot, and squishy, and…uggh, I don’t even wanna think about it.

And then there’s green bean casserole. Actually, I quite like green bean casserole. But nobody in my family ever made the stuff.

All the appeal and excitement of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, straight out of the box.

All the appeal and excitement of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, straight out of the box.

On top of the conspicuous absence of green been casserole, there was always some heinous cornbread dressing—chock full of eggs. Did I mention that I’m allergic to eggs? So, yeah, it’s great to have a meal that involves plenty of unappealing food, including at least one awful food with plenty of deadly toxins—toxins aimed only at me!! Haven’t you people heard of Stove Top? It’s much easier to make, and much less deadly.  While we’re, on the egg tip…there were always weird, unappealing things like Waldorf salads, slathered in eggy mayonnaise.  There were pumpkin pies and pecan pies–eggs, eggs, eggs!!

And, well, just forget the rest of that food, okay?  I’m already in danger of going fetal here.

Since I’m an adult now, more or less, and I get to make at least part of the decision about what’s going to happen on holidays, we eat out on Thanksgiving—every Thanksgiving since 2010. This started out as a matter of practicality. I had been doing shift work for a few years already at that point—jobs that involved round-the-clock coverage, with holiday time off at a premium.

So, doing the whole, make-a-big-meal-and-then-take-off-for-work, or work-all-day-and-then-come-home-for-a-meal thing wasn’t exactly conducive to Thanksgiving harmony, especially when my wife had to take the lead on the meal with little support (hey, I took care of the shopping), and I would either be at work or asleep prior to going to work. Accepting invitations to other friends’ Thanksgiving meals was also complicated by my work schedule—so the wife and kid might go to a friend’s holiday meal without me (which was fine with me, but my wife felt bad about it).

To be sure, my wife is an amazing cook. But traditional American cuisine, and traditional American holiday cuisine, is not her forte’. She made some wonderful holiday meals (that whole incident with the Reynolds roast-in turkey bag not withstanding), but wasn’t always able to tell if things had turned out successfully, since the things she was making were a bit foreign to her. And given her highly-self-critical nature, no amount of reassurance was going to make her happy. So, forget it—let somebody else stress about the meals.

Most years, Thanksgiving out involves just my wife, my daughter, and me—although last year we had the pleasure of booking a party big enough to get us a private room at Preservation Kitchen—which is a pretty amazing place—and which was my favorite Thanksgiving meal since we’ve been doing the restaurant thing. I spent the bulk of the meal sampling beers (after a dirty gin martini opener) and conversing with a second grader. And since he and I have a similar sense of humor, it worked out pretty darn well.

I’m guessing most U.S. citizens feel obligated to be involved in some family-oriented, meal-centric Thanksgiving hassle, because that’s what you’re made to do growing up. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some weird sense of obligation ruin a perfectly good (if boring) holiday, that should be about things we’re thankful for. I’ll just say, I’m extremely thankful to be able to blow a few hundred bucks on a nice meal out, rather than blowing a few hundred bucks on a bunch of stuff that we now have to prepare ourselves amidst a bunch of other logistical complications.

Today, we’re hitting Palomino in downtown Seattle. Haven’t ever eaten there. Maybe I’ll post an update so you’ll know if it was at all satisfying. Maybe I won’t. I refuse to feel overly obligated by all this.

So, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! If you’re eating at somebody’s home, be nice to the hosts and steer clear of conversations about religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin. If you’re eating out, tip well—really, really well.